DENVER—Gov. Bill Ritter on Friday defended his decision to ask voters to increase funding for college scholarships instead of giving the money to colleges and universities to hire more professors, telling college presidents and board members he couldn’t get a consensus that they would back him.

Ritter said someone needs to make the case to voters that colleges need more money. He said students and education groups enthusiastically backed an initiative that would get money for scholarships by taking away a tax credit from the oil and gas industry.

He said two-thirds of resident students would benefit.

“In order for us to really do anything that funds higher education in a different way, you have to make the case. We have to make our case there is this significant need our state budget cannot supply,” he told college leaders.

University of Colorado Regent Tillie Bishop said it won’t do much good for Colorado to recruit more college students if colleges cannot provide the professors to teach them.

“If we get more students and don’t have the operational budget, we won’t have the resources to keep that in line,” Bishop said.

Ritter said he is backing an initiative for the November ballot that would ask voters to end property-tax deductions for the oil and gas industry that allows producers to take a credit of up to 87.5 percent of the prior year’s property tax liability from their severance taxes.

Ritter said it would provide the state with more than $200 million a year.

Under Ritter’s proposal, 60 percent would go to a fund called Colorado Promise Scholarship, 15 percent for local impact of the oil and gas industry on transportation and water quality, 15 percent for wildlife habitat, and 10 percent to clean energy projects. Part of the money also will be put into a trust fund so students wouldn’t lose their scholarships if revenues decline.

Scholarships would be based on a family’s adjusted gross income and eligibility would be capped at higher income levels. They would also be based on the number of students a family has in college. Students would be required to maintain a 2.5 or greater grade point average.

Ritter said a student studying to be a teacher at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, for instance, whose family had an adjusted gross income of $62,000, would qualify for a $2,000 grant. He said it would reduce tuition and fees from $6,500 to $4,500, a 31 percent cut.

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